


The Phone

by MrSnailDood



Category: Shazam! | Captain Marvel (Comics)
Genre: Billy can use magic, Captain Marvel looks like C.C. Batson, I'm aware this is overly angsty, Oneshot, This isn't the only side of Billy but it sure is the side I'm writing about today
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-02
Updated: 2019-08-02
Packaged: 2020-07-29 06:01:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,107
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20077327
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MrSnailDood/pseuds/MrSnailDood
Summary: Captain Marvel looks identical to his dad, and a lonely Billy exploits this.





	The Phone

Billy clutched the cracked phone, the shape and weight of it feeling unnatural in his small hands. He’d found it battered in an alleyway, clearly abandoned for good, thrown out by someone who was fortunate enough not to care about an item like this. Billy had briefly considered selling it, it wouldn’t make much in the state it was in but it might be able to spare him another skipped meal. Or…

He closed his eyes, focusing on the ridges of the jagged lines that skimmed along the frame of the phone, the lines that teased what would be an intricate interior, which would’ve once been buzzing with currents and warmth but now was cold and hard and dead. He imagined scooping a part of himself out of his chest, moving his own warmth through his shoulders, through his arms, through his hands, and into the small device. He shivered as the familiar feeling of pins and needles spread across his whole body, as he heard the sharp crackle of static in the air, as he felt all his hairs rise in unison. 

The vibrating sensation in his hands made him flinch. He snapped his blue eyes open to stare down at the phone in disbelief. Letting out a mixture of what was a sigh and a laugh, a ‘hah!’ of triumph, he admired his handiwork with a smile. The phone was glowing proudly. Sure, it was flickering every other second, but it was clearly on. He’d done it! Billy’s magic was meager compared to the power he wielded as the Champion, but it still didn’t mix very well with electronics. He had half expected the phone to blow up in his hands, maybe melt, maybe start smoking. This success was a pleasant surprise. 

Not really knowing what to do with the phone(From the looks of it, it seemed incapable of calling or texting. Not that he had ever really felt the need for that.) he decided to keep it stashed within the floorboards under his ‘bed’, a worn mattress with spill marks that never seemed to wash out. It was where he kept his most prized possessions: A couple pieces of old chocolate for the worst days. A jar with a few dollars carefully folded away. A signed baseball from his favorite player, who he had the privilege of meeting during his duty hours. A stuffed tiger doll he had yet to return to his sister... if he’d known where to find her, anyway. And last of all, a Ziploc bag holding his only family photo.

Carefully shifting the items around to create room and gently shooing off stray critters, he placed the phone inside. The screen lit up unexpectedly- His finger must’ve brushed the power button. For just a moment too long, the four smiling faces of a better time were illuminated in the dark. Billy found himself staring into the space long after the phone went to sleep. Lightly shaking his head, he shoved the floorboards back into place and dragged his mattress right over it. Back to where it belonged.

It didn’t take him long make use of the phone itself, though.

The idea, at first, was pure ridiculous. He giggled to himself at the thought, because it was funny. It WAS funny. It was a lot of other things, too, but it was such an absurd idea at the time that humor was the only way he wanted to interpret it through.

But then at some point after countless rescue missions, after a lot of emotional hugs and thank you’s and teared up phone calls, after parents clutching their children preciously in their arms, after children laughed as if nothing had happened because really, nothing HAD happened as long as they were back with their family; Billy began to eye the extra-extra-extra-large section of his neighborhood’s thrift store. Maybe.

Then at a local little league baseball game, into which he had somehow sneaked himself into as a player, his team had lost. They had lost bad, bad enough for some kids to start bursting into tears and others to throw off their caps and stomp out of the stadium in a fit of rage. Hurried parents and grandparents followed them close in suite, offering consolatory ice-creams and pats on the backs and tissues. Billy had to admit the loss made his eyes a bit watery too. He didn’t let himself beyond that, though, because it was only a game and wiping his face with his sleeves made it itchy. He shuffled home, playing kickball with pebbles, wondering if his cape was detachable. Maybe.

Then when he had collapsed onto his mattress, covered in bruises and a numbing cigarette burn on his left cheek, falling asleep with the bitter smell of smoke and bad breath lingering in his nose, waking up in a cold sweat, maybe it was then. When he had to pick up his own complaining body and blindly grab at his first aid kit, hissing in pain as he crudely bandaged his bloody leg the best he could, maybe it was then. When he tossed and turned and shivered and moaned in a fever, mumbling nonsense to Tawky Tawny as he held the doll tight in his arms, waiting until the demon of fire finally let go of him, maybe it was then.

It was embarrassing, it was ridiculous, it was stupid. But he needed it. (Plus, he had run out of chocolate.)

Billy dug the phone out of its hiding place and switched it on, pressing wildly, desperately, on the gallery icon. He scrolled, down and down videos of mistakes and retakes and fits of pathetic laughter. Swallowing, he found the most recent one and played it. The phone sputtered for a second before transitioning into the image of a big smiling face, one that comforted Billy so instantly that his always tense shoulders dropped. C.C. Batson winked at him from the phone, wearing a brown trench coat and hat.

_ **“Hey Billy, it’s your old man. How are you? I’d ruffle your head through the screen if I could, haha. You can’t guess what your mom and I found today at the pyramids, it’s so exciting and I know you’ll love it. So she and I were just starting to run out of lantern fuel, when…** _

Billy sniffled, and perhaps he was too busy hugging the phone to his heart, soaking in every word of his father’s warm voice, to notice that the lightning mark was peeking ever so slightly through the coat on the screen. 

Ah well. Save that for the blanket kicks of shame later.

**Author's Note:**

> Wrote this in two hours and it was originally part of a greater(not as completely angsty) storyline that I've been thinking of, but I've made it a shorter oneshot just because I wanted to write in down on (figurative) paper. Sorry about the run ons, and thanks for reading! Feel free to critique.


End file.
